If you read one thing today, let it be this excerpt from Jackie MacMullan’s book, “When The Game Was Ours.” Trust me. Here’s a snippet: “The conversation lurched on with no resolution until the topic switched to the inevitable follow-up: who was the best 1-on-1 player of all time? ‘Gentlemen,’ said Jordan, ‘give it up. You’ve got no chance on this one. Larry, you don’t have the speed to stay with me. Magic, I can guard you, but you could never guard me. Neither one of you guys can play defense the way I can. And neither one of you can score like me.’ ‘I don’t know about that,’ Magic retorted. ‘I could have scored more if I wanted to. It would have been a good one.’ Jordan’s face darkened.”

I’m 100% behind this suggestion from Paul Forrester: “Isn’t it time one of the networks hired a studio analyst who can break down a game tape and offer more than the same old impressions about Boston’s impressive start and Steve Nash’s remarkable play? A boatload of scouts lost their jobs in the offseason, and many could analyze the intricacies of Eddie Jordan’s offense in Philadelphia or how Denver is setting Carmelo Anthony free possession after possession. No, they wouldn’t have the name recognition of any number of former players, but they’d teach us all a lot more about the game.”

From Dwight Howard’s blog: “I’ve got to give Cleveland credit – they were hungry and they really had a good game plan against me. They wanted to make sure I didn’t get a chance to score with the double teams. On the catch, sometimes they were there before I even got there. They made it clear that they wanted to get the ball out of my hands. I had to trust my teammates and find the open spots. It’s tough because I wanted to go at a guy like Shaq, but I understand that it’s not all about individual stats. I have to keep my teammates involved.”

Ross Siler of The Salt Lake Tribune: “Deron Williams attempted Thursday to clarify his Twitter message from the previous night stressing the need for change in the aftermath of the Jazz’s 105-86 loss to the Boston Celtics, a game in which they never led and trailed by 22 after three quarters. ‘Not like trades or anything,’ Williams said before the Jazz’s practice at Suffolk University. ‘Just we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to find something that works. Whether it’s lineups or what not, we’ve got to do something different. It’s not the end of the world,’ Williams added. ‘I didn’t mean to tweet like it was the end of the world. Just we’ve got to do something. I know the fans watching, I know the fans sitting at home, they’re not happy with us right now. I’m not happy with us, either.’ At the same time, Williams offered a commentary that spoke volumes about the Jazz, sharing a comment made over dinner after watching the Celtics, who had seven players score in double figures Wednesday. ‘A couple of us were talking,’ Williams said, ‘we were looking at Boston and . . .Paul Pierce has 10 points, K.G. [Kevin Garnett] has 10 points, Ray Allen has 10 points, [Rajon] Rondo has 14 points, somebody else had 12 points and they’re on the bench happy. And they don’t care who the hell gets the glory, they just want to win. Until we figure that out, we’re not going to be a good team.’”

Zach Lowe of CelticsHub: “Sheed continues to jack up the threes at an unbelievable rate. He took seven tonight in 21 minutes. He’s now 19-57 from three—just 33 percent. Somehow he is getting away with this.”

Box score stats can be misleading, or as Rockets GM Daryl Morey once put it: “Someone created the box score, and he should be shot.” Here are a few box score statistics valued by Celtics coach Doc Rivers (Via Sports Radio Interviews): “Rebounding, turnovers and assists: those numbers don’t lie. That’s a number we always look at. Defensively, besides field goal percentage, we look at deflections, which they don’t put on the stat sheet. That’s really important. If our deflections are up, usually that means that we’re really active.”

Deron Williams seems to have his sights set on the All Star team this year, even if it comes at the expense of the Utah Jazz.

The Jazz may lose, but Williams sees to it his stat sheet looks good, even if that means over dribbling the ball and holding out to pass only when it can count as an assist, and not expending any real energy on defense, especially on the road, causing the bigs behind him to leave their men to help and their men to score.

You can see his thinking, after all lacking defensive motivation didn’t keep Steve Nash off the all star team, but watching the Jazz win on the road without Deron Williams was a revelation to a lot of Jazz fans I think.

To see how the Jazz play when the ball moves and the perimeter is actually defended was remarkable.

The Jazz have hopefully learned, including Williams watching from his television at home, that their system can be trusted, their coach can be trusted, their teammates can be trusted (even their rookies), and even if they don’t always win, they will do better if they play together and trust each other in this system, rather than watch Deron go serve himself and then tweet about how things have to change.